Major League Catchers, Ranked by Wins Above Replacement
One of many observations I’ve made while perusing Sean Smith’s WAR data at BaseballProjection.com is that catchers don’t rank all that high. Below is the table of catchers with 30 or more career WAR, along with their WAR rank among all hitters in history, start/end years, and whether or not they’re in the Hall of Fame or Hall of Merit.
| Player | Rank | WAR | First Year | Last Year | Hall of Fame | Hall of Merit |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Johnny Bench | 52 | 71.2 | 1967 | 1983 | HOF | HOM |
| Carlton Fisk | 64 | 67.5 | 1969 | 1993 | HOF | HOM |
| Ivan Rodriguez | 72 | 66.6 | 1991 | 2009 | ||
| Gary Carter | 75 | 66.2 | 1974 | 1992 | HOF | HOM |
| Yogi Berra | 97 | 61.6 | 1946 | 1965 | HOF | HOM |
| Mike Piazza | 112 | 59.1 | 1992 | 2007 | ||
| Joe Torre | 136 | 55.5 | 1960 | 1977 | HOM | |
| Bill Dickey | 144 | 54.3 | 1928 | 1946 | HOF | HOM |
| Buck Ewing | 156 | 51.8 | 1880 | 1897 | HOF | HOM |
| Mickey Cochrane | 159 | 51.2 | 1925 | 1937 | HOF | HOM |
| Ted Simmons | 162 | 50.8 | 1968 | 1988 | HOM | |
| Gabby Hartnett | 168 | 50.2 | 1922 | 1941 | HOF | HOM |
| Gene Tenace | 178 | 48.6 | 1969 | 1983 | ||
| Jorge Posada | 228 | 44.3 | 1996 | 2009 | ||
| Wally Schang | 235 | 43.7 | 1913 | 1931 | ||
| Bill Freehan | 239 | 43.4 | 1961 | 1976 | HOM | |
| Thurman Munson | 241 | 43.3 | 1969 | 1979 | ||
| Roger Bresnahan | 259 | 41.5 | 1897 | 1915 | HOF | HOM |
| Darrell Porter | 266 | 40.7 | 1971 | 1987 | ||
| Ernie Lombardi | 293 | 39.0 | 1996 | 2009 | HOF | |
| Charlie Bennett* | 312 | 37.7 | 1878 | 1893 | HOM | |
| Jason Kendall | 317 | 37.1 | 1996 | 2009 | ||
| Roy Campanella | 328 | 36.3 | 1948 | 1957 | HOF | HOM |
| Lance Parrish | 339 | 35.6 | 1977 | 1995 | ||
| Jim Sundberg | 354 | 34.8 | 1974 | 1989 | ||
| Joe Mauer | 391 | 33.1 | 2004 | 2009 | ||
| Smoky Burgess | 415 | 31.9 | 1949 | 1967 | ||
| Jack Clements | 417 | 31.7 | 1884 | 1900 |
Some good stuff here.
A few years ago, back when I was armed with “advanced metrics” such as OPS+, I wrote a long post trying to figure out which catchers were Hall of Fame snubs. In that article, I decided that Wally Schang, Bill Freehan, and Ted Simmons deserved a closer look for induction.
The highest WAR for eligible Non-Hall of Fame catchers:
- Joe Torre (55.5) *
- Ted Simmons (50.8)
- Gene Tenace (48.6)
- Wally Schang (43.7)
- Bill Freehan (43.4)
- Thurman Munson (43.3)
* Torre caught in less than half of his career games, but catcher is his most often-fielded position.
So, turns out WAR somewhat supports those earlier findings. Torre is tricky because of all the positions he played. But one nice thing about catcher WAR is they are docked for time spent at other positions (via the positional adjustment). Tenace, like Sal Bando, is simply better than I thought. Tenace is talked about in some Hall discussions, and it looks like he sits right on that bubble.
Schang and Freehan rank pretty well (especially considering their career plate appearance totals are only in the 6000s). It’s music to a Yankee fan’s ears that Munson happens to be right there with Freehan as well (with only 5800 PAs, too). While Freehan’s Gold Gloves and reputation make him out to be an elite defender, the data shows him as simply a bit above average. Freehan’s “Catch” total is 26 runs above average—compare that with Pudge Rodriguez (155), Bench (97), Carter (106), Munson (34), or Fisk (30). Heck, Carter once had 27 in a single season. If you’re curious, Piazza was -61.
Wait, what’s this “Catch” portion of WAR?
Catch – Catcher ratings based on stolen bases allowed, caught stealing, errors, wild pitches, passed balls, and pickoffs. Catchers are compared to the yearly league average, with the averages splits catching lefthanded and righthanded pitchers
Maybe there’s something that “Catch” doesn’t take into account that Freehan excelled at (like pitch calling).
Among the eligible Non-Hall guys on my short list, Torre, Simmons, and Freehan are in the Hall of Merit. Tenace, Schang, and Munson are not. I’m kind of surprised Schang isn’t. With his high OBP, at first glance he’s kind of a textbook Hall of Merit guy (thinking in terms of Heinie Groh).
Simmons is in the Hall of Merit, but was banished from the Hall of Fame ballot after just one try. No Hall of Fame catchers have more hits (2472) or doubles (483) than Simmons. Just Yogi Berra has more RBI than Simmons while only Johnny Bench, Carlton Fisk, and Gary Carter hit more home runs. Simmons was also an 8-time All Star. How is he not in the Hall?
He had many impressive career totals and the fact that he’s not in is a bit of a headscratcher. However, when you start looking at WAR, you see that Simmons only rates 2.2 wins ahead of Tenace. Add to that the fact that Tenace had 5,525 plate appearances to Simmons’ 9,685 and it Simmons actually looks better in terms of old school stats. What does this mean about the Hall of Fame cases for Simmons and Tenace? Well, that’s just one more thing I’l dig into further soon.
Some other observations from this table:
- Two Hall of Famers don’t even make this list: Ray Schalk (22.7 WAR) and Rick Ferrell (22.9 WAR). Add them both together and you don’t even get Ted Simmons (50.8 WAR).
- There are nine positions on the field (if you include DH). I can’t believe we don’t see our first catcher until #52. It seems that, like relief pitchers, catchers have a hard time accruing career WAR.
- The catchers that appear at the top, as expected, had long careers with a lot of plate appearances. Buck Ewing’s appearance at 51.8 WAR is impressive because it took him just 5764 plate appearances to do so.
- In another post, I introduced WAR/9 IP in order to see which relievers packed a lot of value into a relatively small amount of playing time. It might be useful to see WAR/600 PA (or similar) for catchers since the playing time can vary so much.
- Of course, Wins Above Excellence will be handy to find dominant seasons. Expect to see plenty of WAE tables in the future.
More on catchers soon!
* Update: I missed Charlie Bennett in my first round of research. He was a 19th century catcher who not only happens to be in the Hall of Merit, but also owns the best “Catch” rating in the history of baseball.
Is the reason why catchers struggle for WAR because they don’t usually have super offense, and maybe defense is undervalued, even in WAR?
I wonder if SS fall into the same category (another defense-first position that, typically, has poor offense)
I have a feeling that catchers have lower WAR because of playing time. Their careers aren’t as long and they don’t play as many games in a season as most other players. So, even if they play as many years as a non-catcher, they’re generally starting at a 20% (or so) WAR disadvantage because of playing time per season.